


The Many Loves of Frodo Baggins

by baranduin



Category: Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003), Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Crack, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-13
Updated: 2010-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:14:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baranduin/pseuds/baranduin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Birthday crack!fic for Claudia in 2004. The pairings really should read: Frodo/Everyone regardless of species, size or gender.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Many Loves of Frodo Baggins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [claudia603](https://archiveofourown.org/users/claudia603/gifts).



_Appendix X from the Red Book of Westmarch, or was that Appendix NC-17?  
Lies! Gossip! Slander! Awake! Lies! Gossip! Slander!_

 

A: Oh, dear. And I thought I'd get on so easily and here I am stuck at the very start. Let me put my thinking cap on. Oh. *blushes* HIM. Well, friendship, not to mention loyalty to the King, prevents me from being indiscreet. What? The whole thing is indiscreet? You might have a point there.

Very well. A is for Aragorn though Frodo really always rather preferred Strider (see "S"). It was the grubbiness, you know.

 

B: O Boromir! The Ring-bearer shall ever southward gaze  
To ...

He didn't, really. Especially not after he met poor B's younger brother. Easy come, easy go.

 

C: Do you remember that time after the Travellers returned to the Shire and Frodo was staying at Farmer Cotton's home while Bag End was being made habitable again? And how poor Frodo suffered so terribly and Farmer Cotton found him lying on his bed, clutching Arwen's pendant and muttering dark, desperate things?

He was a sly one, that Frodo was. Used the tools he had to hand as well! Let's just say the main section of the Red Book didn't go into quite as much detail about that afternoon as it could have as regards suffering and its relief thereof, being the (mostly) respectable account of (somewhat) respectable hobbits and their (disgraceful) doings in the (outlandish) Outside. Respect for the departed (dead or only transported over Sea) makes me merely give you a wink and a nod, and I leave the rest to your imagination.

 

D: I think it quite likely that Frodo learned to love a bit of the old tie-me-up tie-me-down in the cave at Henneth Annun with Damrod. Apparently, all that being turned about and manhandled on the way was rather stirring to Frodo's blood. Bagginses. Mighty queer folk.

 

E: I think Frodo missed Eomer the most after his emigration to the West. It was the sheer physicality of the man—once known, impossible to forget. It is certain that the Blessed Realm is full of things fair beyond the knowledge of mortal folk, but it is no less certain that there are no big and strong horse boys there. With big and strong body parts that are very much to the liking of a certain expatriate Hobbit. It was the hair, you know, that long flowing blond hair. Frodo never lost that craving to feel Eomer's hair against his throat. It was so soft and fine on his skin.

 

F: Sometimes Frodo sits in his cozy study in his hobbity house that burrows into a very nice green hill in the Blessed Realm. He likes to sit cross-legged on the floor by the fire with a heavy book open on his lap. And as he turns the thick parchment pages, stroking the curling illuminated script with one finger, he remembers one night in Minas Tirith when he pretended to read another book. For of course he merely pretends to read in his Western home since all his thought is bent on remembering that night he spent with the gentle Ithilien Ranger. He wonders if Faramir does the same now with Eowyn, and it makes him smile. He can be pardoned, I hope, if he gets a little teary-eyed about it, and he doesn't do it very often. But oh ... sometimes he needs to.

 

G: Frodo doesn't have to rely on his memories of Gandalf, for his old friend and sometime lover is with him much of the time. Frodo always laughs when Gandalf is around. At first so much laughter startled him, but now he is used to it and likes it very much. Gandalf had always seemed hobbity to Frodo, and oddly enough, now that they have come through the Darkness, this homely quality has increased. Odd and yet it makes sense to Frodo.

 

H: Once upon a time before the time when Frodo stepped over the boundaries of the Shire and pursued his appointed task (and it pursued him), there was another time when Frodo happened to be on the "Outside" bank of the Brandywine. He saw a thin stream of smoke rising from the woods. Oh, about a mile north of the East Road. Thinking it must be Merry off having a lark or some such thing, he followed a twisting path and, sure enough, after about a mile he broke out of the trees into a small glade where a big Man was tending his fire. This was Frodo's first actual glimpse of one of the Big Folk (on some points, the official version of the Red Book is not entirely accurate), and it made him feel funny. Not laugh-aloud funny, just rather odd. Tingly in his toes. Especially when the big Man stood up and greeted him with fair words. "Well met," the big Man said and smiled.

Ah. This big Man had a dour and somewhat grim visage, set off by solemn grey eyes and shaggy dark hair (and truth to tell, he wore shaggy dark clothing as well, what a surprise!). But when he smiled, it transformed his face and he seemed gentle and kind though the sound of his voice was gruff as though he seldom used it.

Frodo bowed. "Well met. I am Frodo Baggins of Hobbiton," he said. "And you are?"

"Halbarad," the big Man said. "I've got some coney stewing on the pot. Would you like a little tender coney?"

"Don't mind if I do," Frodo said and drew close to the fire, thinking a little tender big Man would be even better.

And so Frodo's first friendship with one of the Big Folk began under auspicious circumstances, and it grieved him when he learned of Halbard's fate on the Pelennor.

 

I: Well, what can you say about Prince Imrahil? A sort of bit part in Frodo's love life, rather as he was in the book. But pleasant and kindly to think back on (though Frodo could not walk for a week after).

 

J: It's no secret that Beregond and Pippin grew very fond of each other, strange though it seemed to the folk of Minas Tirith at first. It was also known that Beregond had a brother named Jorlas, and a fine man of Gondor he was though he did not live much in the City. What is not known at all (until now, huzzah!) is that one night at the Sign of the Leaning Tower our Frodo met Beregond's Jorlas and before the night was out, he'd learned at first hand just how fine a man this Gondorian was. I believe it was Jorlas' hands. They were very strong and rough. Almost Ranger-like, you could say.

 

K: "Goldberry?" The word came out in a croak, but we can pardon Frodo for not speaking in a more refined manner. Actually, we should applaud him for being able to get anything out at all. The last person he'd ever expected to meet across the Sundering Seas was Tom Bombadil's lady. But there she was in the flesh!

Frodo jumped up and rubbed some grass from the seat of his breeches as he watched Goldberry approach. She held out her hand to Frodo and in it was an apple with a golden skin that blushed pink on one side as though it had grown a little ruddy in the sun. She sat and smiled at Frodo as he took the apple in his hand. It appeared that he was trying to imitate the flush of the apple on his own cheeks.

"I beg your pardon," Frodo said, feeling a fool. "I thought you were someone ..."

"Someone from your home?" The lady's voice was low and sweet, rather like Goldberry's but deeper and richer—just as her golden beauty was more profound.

"Yes," Frodo answered. "May I ask who you are?"

It didn't seem possible that such a grand creature—an Elf, Frodo supposed though she seemed grander than that—could have dimples but there they were. Two of them, one on each cheek when the smile blossomed again on her face. "Do you not know?"

Frodo shook his head.

"Eat your apple and then, if you cannot guess, I shall tell you."

Frodo had forgotten that he held her apple in his hand, which was rather difficult seeing how large and round and utterly perfect it was. Even without raising the apple to his lips, he could smell its delicious perfume, warm and sweet.

Now, Frodo did not make a habit of closing his eyes as he ate, but that's what he did after the first bit of apple juice spread in his mouth. It was as though he'd never eaten an apple before in his life, and that's saying a lot, coming from one who was born and raised in the Shire.

Frodo ate all of that apple with his eyes closed, the juice sticky on his mouth and fingers. When he was finished, he licked his lips, opened his eyes and said, "Thank you."

The lady inclined her head though not before she tossed it a bit. If anyone else had done that, Frodo would have said that she had positively preened, but somehow it didn't seem appropriate to say so out loud. "A good year for apples, if I don't say so myself," she said. "I shall have to show you my orchards some day." She raised an eyebrow. "And do you know my name now?"

Frodo grinned. "I do."

"Good," she said. "Then I shall enjoy meeting you again, Frodo of the Shire." She rose and stretched. "I feel like baking. Do you like apple pie?"

And so, in that fashion, Frodo made the acquaintance of the Queen of the Earth. It is true that she has many names—Palúrien, Yavanna, Bringer of Fruit—but to Frodo ever after she was Kementari. Though sometimes he slipped and called her Goldberry.

 

L: Frodo never met Lòrien face-to-face, but they grew to be fast friends. It wasn't something Frodo could put into words (or even give a name to it), but sometimes his memories and wounds still troubled him and sleep seemed far away. On some of those nights, when he felt the walls closing in around him and he grew desperate from his fear and mortal weariness and the Ring still pulled at him, sleep came to rescue him just at the point when he despaired of ever resting again. When he woke in the morning after such a night and looked out his bedroom window to see the bright blue sky, it seemed to him that someone was just slipping away from him with a soft word of farewell. It was someone he did not know but who grew familiar and comfortable to him as the years passed. But Frodo never knew any more than that, and he was content for he always felt that, after passing through a fearful dark place, he'd restored himself in a fair garden. Almost as fair as the garden at Bag End.

 

M: Merry's fine fine reputation with the lads and lasses of the Shire was well-deserved. For had he not learned everything he knew at the knee of his dear cousin Frodo? Though "knee" might not be exactly the most pertinent body part involved in the enterprise.

 

N: Nob. Yes, there I've said it. Well, Frodo had to get some of that nervous energy out after all the commotion in Bree that night, didn't he? And Nob was obliging, oh, yes, he was a very obliging hobbit. Cheery too. And I ain't saying nothin' else about any nobs.

 

O: Orophin. Freaking Elves. Let's face it. There wasn't much to do to while away that night in the flet and Frodo couldn't sleep. At least not very well. Or perhaps I should say he couldn't sleep right away.

 

P: Pippin. Well, what can I say about Pippin? You see, Frodo was certainly responsible for a good portion of Pippin's amatory training, but it came in a sort of roundabout fashion, seeing as the path was Frodo to Merry and Merry to Pippin.

 

Q: Qalmë-Tàri cries for Frodo. She has cried countless tears for all of Arda, and not a few of those count toward Frodo's suffering. When Lòrien sets Frodo on his garden path, the pain and suffering must go somewhere, and so Qalmë-Tàri takes it on herself and watches over Frodo as he lies dreaming of green grass and blooming roses and daffodils. Her tears fall on him and become the morning dew that wakes him to new vigor and hope. Frodo is very dear to Qalmë-Tàri.

 

R: Frodo never met Radagast in Middle-earth. Instead, he made his acquaintance on Tol-Eressëa. It might be better to say that they bumped into each other, literally, for both of them had spied a fox and were chasing after it to make friends.

"Ouch!" Frodo said as he ran headlong into what at first seemed to be a tall brown tree.

"Ouf!" Radagast said as Frodo's head cannoned into his belly and knocked the breath out of him.

When they both stopped laughing, they picked themselves up and bowed to each other. "Well met," they said to each other and exchanged names.

Fair dreams and the tears of Nienna are all fine things, but running free in the woods with a good friend can be just as healing. And possibly more.

 

S: Strider. Stubble. Dirt. Growly voice. Rrrrrrrough but gentle hands. Mmmm, leather.

 

T: Ted Sandyman. Yuck. Let's not go there. I think I'll just say that there are some nights that Frodo prefers to forget. Do you remember how they said at Bree that Mr. Underhill had taken a little too much ale than was good for him?

*cough*

 

U: Though Frodo never met Arwen Undomiel again, still she was always with him.

 

V: And lo, Frodo wandered in the woods of Lothlorien and there he met Valwë, the father of Lindo and they did consort prettily with each other.

Frankly, Frodo was rather glad they were just passing through.

Even more frankly, Frodo was appalled when he ran into the Elf again when he'd moved to Tol-Eressëa.

Oy.

 

W: It's known that the brief time before Frodo took ship for the West was very distressing to him. So distressing that he found himself taking solace with Will Whitfoot.

There. I've said it. Will Whitfoot. The bottom of the barrel. (Hey! No snotty cracks to the author here about bottoms and barrels and scraping!!!)

Many barrels.

Those two ate and drank their way through more barrels of ale and brandied apples than you could shake a stick at. Everyone thought Frodo grew paler and thinner and thinner and paler. *snort* Well, we all have our ways of displaying the symptoms of our Post Traumatic Stress disorders. Personally, I think the Ring-bearer earned those pies and cakes and scones and ...

And let's face it, Will Whitfoot was just the hobbit to lead him to them.

 

X: X-factor. Frodo had it.

 

Y: Yavanna (see Kementari, the Queen of the World, Bringer of Fruit, etc. etc. etc.)

 

Z: Could it be denied that everyone's heartstrings went ZING at the sight of Frodo: I didn't think so. Honestly. The only Z I could think of was Zirak-Zigil and I just couldn't see how the mountain would fall in love with Frodo though if a mountain could conceivably fall in love with a mortal, it would certainly be with Frodo. Which would really be quite sensible of it.


End file.
